United Nations Daily Highlights, 99-06-04

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From: The United Nations Home Page at <http://www.un.org> - email: unnews@un.org

DAILY HIGHLIGHTS

Friday, 4 June, 1999

HEADLINES

• Secretary-General says work has begun on Security Council resolution to put Kosovo peace plan into effect.
• United Nations planning for peace in Kosovo moves into high gear.
• UNHCR steps up preparations for return of hundreds of thousands of Kosovo refugees.
• UN inspectors resume checks of nuclear facility in Federal Republic of Yugoslavia.
• Secretary-General congratulates new South African President, praises "positive" atmosphere of elections.
• Marking World Environment Day, UN stresses need to preserve Earth for coming generations.
• Citing need for global measures, head of UN environment agency backs EU action on dioxin-contaminated food.
• UN calls for boycott of Afghan timber to stem deforestation. * UN World Food Programme announces aid for people in drought- stricken Somalia and Ethiopia.

Welcoming the news of the breakthrough agreement reached in Belgrade on Thursday, the Secretary-General said the United Nations, which had been active in preparing for peace, was proceeding at full speed with its planning, so that it could assume the responsibilities the Security Council might entrust to it, particularly in the civilian field.

"I have always believed that the only meaningful victory for the international community at the end of this tragic crisis will be one which permits the refugees and displaced persons to return to their homes in safety and dignity, said Mr. Annan.

Secretary-General Kofi Annan will convene a meeting in Geneva on Tuesday of UN agencies and other organizations likely to be involved in the civilian administration that will move into Kosovo as soon as peace returns to the ravaged province.

In preparation for Tuesday's meeting, a flurry of activity is planned to ensure a swift and effective UN response. The Under-Secretary-General for Peacekeeping, Bernard Miyet, fresh from consultations with NATO and the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE), met with the planning team on Friday.

The Secretary-General's two Special Envoys for the Balkans, Carl Bildt and Eduard Kukan, will meet with senior United Nations political, peacekeeping and humanitarian officials, as well as representatives from NATO, the European Commission and the OSCE.

Meanwhile, the UN World Food Program (WFP) said on Friday it was preparing to get food into Kosovo quickly after a ceasefire.

The agency has over a million daily rations in the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, Greece and Italy, and more than 30 trucks ready to deliver the food. WFP also has set up a number of mobile warehouses for food and has identified five locations in Kosovo where it will set up offices, with its headquarters in Pristina.

WFP said it has enough food in the region to feed some 800,000 refugees for two months and within two weeks would have a 3-month's supply for 600,000 additional people inside Kosovo. WFP is prepared to move in with ready-to- eat meals and mobile bakeries.

The Director-General of the World Health Organization (WHO), Gro Harlem Brundtland, has appointed a Special Representative for the Balkans Region to link up with other actors on what needs to be done to restore the public health systems in Kosovo and Serbia, as well as in Albania and the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia.

The UN agency, which under the peace plan, will have the lead role in the huge repatriation movement, is convening a meeting of its planning team on Sunday ahead of discussions planned for early next week. UNHCR stressed that a successful return will be linked to a total withdrawal of Serbian forces from Kosovo and the deployment of a strong international troops contingent to ensure the safety of the returnees.

According to the agency, reaction in the refugee camps in Albania and the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia to Belgrade's reported acceptance was mixed. Some were skeptical, others said they were prepared to return home as soon as possible. In one initial reaction, fewer refugees are reported moving away from the northern Albanian border town of Kukes under a UNHCR programme prompted by security concerns.

UNHCR was coordinating humanitarian assistance in Kosovo until its staff were pulled out of the Serbian province on the eve of NATO airstrikes on 24 March. At the time, UNHCR was assisting 400,000 people in Kosovo and nearly 100,000 others in Albania, the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia and Montenegro.

Having received clearance from UN security and Yugoslav officials, a team of three IAEA inspectors visited a nuclear research centre near Belgrade to examine the nuclear materials stored there.

The visits to the facility at Vinca on Thursday and Friday were conducted under long-standing safeguards agreements and represented a routine inspection, Spokesman Fred Eckhard told the press at UN Headquarters in New York. He noted, however, that "nothing is routine in Yugoslavia now."

"The Agency is not anticipating that anything unusual will come out of the inspection, but it had been anxious to visit the country in advance of the IAEA Board of Governors meeting next week in order to be able to report to the Board that inspections in Yugoslavia had resumed," said Mr. Eckhard.

A spokesman for the Secretary-General said that Mr. Annan lauded the positive and peaceful atmosphere of the elections and the "robust" participation of South Africans in the democratic process.

"He commends all the political parties and their supporters for helping to consolidate the historic, democratic and non-racial elections of 1994 which were pivotal to the transformation of South Africa into a democratic society based on equality, respect and opportunity for all of its people," said Secretary-General's Spokesman Fred Eckhard.

The Secretary-General also expressed his admiration and respect for President Nelson Mandela, "whose place in the history of South Africa is self-evident," Mr. Eckhard said.

The theme for this year's commemoration is "Our Earth - Our Future - Just Save It!". The main festivities will take place in Tokyo, where the Global 500 awards will be presented to individuals and organizations recognized for their contributions to the protection of the environment. Seventeen winners from 12 countries were chosen this year.

In his message marking World Environment Day, Secretary-General Kofi Annan said that although saving the Earth had become a popular cause, there were clear signals human activities were still making excessive demands on the environment. "In our own interest, we must also have the will to change our ways and walk the path to a sustainable future for all," he said.

Echoing that theme, Klaus Toepfer, Executive Director of the UN Environment Programme (UNEP), said that in the next century the world must shift to a new system of industrialization that is based on renewable energy and that continually reuses and recycles materials.

"We must remember that however skilful our technologies, however innovative the responses of science, we shall obtain success over the long run only if everyone on this planet is profoundly convinced that to work for the preservation of his own environment is also to accomplish a duty in behalf of generations to come," Mr. Toepfer said.

Klaus Toepfer, the Executive Director of the UN Environment Programme (UNEP), said the EU action points to the need for global action to reduce or eliminate emissions of POPs and that he was confident a legally binding treaty would be adopted by the end of next year.

Mr. Toepfer stressed it was "important and right" that EU countries took steps to monitor the food supply and identified problems such as the dioxin- contaminated poultry products. He noted, however, that the great majority of the world's population was not in that position, and that it was equally important that all countries were able to take the needed protective measures.

In advance of the treaty, UNEP is working to help developing countries and countries with economies in transition to increase their capacity to identify sources of dioxins and cut back or eliminate their releases into the environment.

"UNEP has a vital role to play in helping reduce dioxine releases into the environment and so to ensure that these safeguards never have to be triggered," Mr. Toepfer said.

"These forests constitute a invaluable natural resource for the people of Afghanistan, and they are in danger of complete disappearance", UN Spokesperson Stephanie Bunker told a press briefing on Friday at the UN Information Centre in Islamabad, Pakistan.

War-related human activity --including landmines and bombing -- have worsened environmental conditions the last two decades, yet deforestation remains one of the most important factors affecting the environment, Ms. Bunker said.

Some 85 percent of the rural population depends primarily on wood for heating and cooking because of the lack of alternative fuels, while the timber trade has been targeting old growth forests in eastern Afghanistan for export. In the country's north and west, natural pistachio and juniper forests are also being cut for both fuelwood and timber, according to Ms. Bunker.

The WFP vessel, carrying 5,000 metric tonnes of maize from France, is the first direct aid shipment from Europe to Somalia since 1995. The food will feed nearly 500,000 people suffering from a recent drought in southern Somalia until the harvest in August.

"We are racing against time to get this food unloaded, as the water is so choppy the barges are really struggling to shuttle the food onto dry land," said WFP official John Hayes.

Meanwhile, WFP also approved a $40.5 million emergency operation to feed nearly 1.2 million people in eight regions of Ethiopia suffering from drought.

The campaign will run from June through December and provide more than 100, 000 tonnes of emergency food aid to pregnant and nursing mothers, small children, the disabled and elderly.

According to WFP, an extended dry spell during the rainy season that ended in May has hindered crop planting, germination and growth. Lower than expected crop yields after the rainy season last September have compounded the problem. Many farmers have been forced to sell their oxen and other livestock because of the deteriorating food situation.

From the United Nations home page at <http://www.un.org> - email: unnews@un.org

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